Reading and Writing Concluded

Just a short post today more about reading and writing. Last week I mostly talked about reading and finding things that you like in the writing, then learning how to intergrade them into your own style. This week I want to talk about when you find bad writing. Now I am not really very critical of nine out of ten writers. I know how hard it to write the first draft, then you have get the courage up to show it to another human being, then you have to find the energy and drive to edit the piece into the ground. I understand all that. It is not easy but there some things that just kill the writing or the story for me. Now luckily, I think, that all these problems are easy to work around. I have two major problems that will kill a story and sometimes even a writer for me.

The first problem and the least is the prose. By that I mean the prose is just not readable, something went wrong with the writing process and now it is just bad. But take heart there is an easy way to fix this. Read it out loud. I am not kidding. Read the book or passage or dialogue out loud. If it does not sound right then it will not read right. I use this when I remember to and there is a difference in both the quality of my work, my happiness with the work, and even in my grades. I love audiobooks; so I have a habit of reading out loud to myself. I do this when I am having a hard time with the Lupus or if I am just not understanding what is being written. I know that makes it take longer to get through the piece but it is worth it in the end because you will have a better written piece.

The other major problem is much more serious. That is when the author does not do their research. When you are writing in your own world you make the rules but some things are the same. Like if you are writing something that is supposed to be real world then the sun needs to rise in the east. The biggest example I can think of is a YA novel that I read last year and the writer did not do research on how a rape survivor acts. The heroine, who has been trained at this point to be an assassin, wakes up in her bed knowing that someone else is in the room. The person touches her foot and all she can think is about is how warm his hand is. To this day that offends me. The heroine was brutalized, beaten, and strongly hinted that she was raped at least once in her life. No rape survivor is going to act like that. She is going to lose it and I know this because I have taken friends to my local rape clinic, I have held their hands as they told their story over and over. I am not saying that they live in fear every moment of their lives because that is not true either but if any of them woke up to some guy in their room they are not going to think about how warm his hand is. If you want to know what book I am talking about I will answer in private message but not in a public way. Well this one ended up longer than I thought it would. Thanks for reading and see you next week.

Writing and Reading

Something I hear from everyone in the writing field is that they all read and they read all the time. The reasons that are given are that it gives you new ideas, it shows you how any people are writing about X or Y, and that is makes you a better writer. Well I agree. Reading what others write will do all that for you and more. There is something about it that does good things for our brains. As a librarian I cannot stress the importance of reading enough. If you want to know more about the brain science behind why it is important just Google ‘brain science and reading’. There are many excellent articles from Science News and others about the importance of reading to the brain.

But what does reading do for writers? I cannot speak for others but for me it shows me what I like and what I do not like. When other writers use a certain turn of phrase that I just love I want to think of how to use it myself. Seeing both what other writers are writing about and how they are writing gives us learning writers’ guidance. When more experienced writers do something well, I want to copy it. That is not a bad thing. In fact it a good thing for younger writers to try and copy those we admire. It will teach us how to find our own voice. Every artist has a voice and the only way to find yours is to try on others first. Like when you were a child and you played dress up. You were trying on different voices to see if that one was closer to your voice. That said I do not endorse stealing from other artists. That is not the way to find your voice.

How can you try on different voices without stealing? One easy and safe way to do that is writing exercises. Take the characters or the setting or whatever really gets you and try writing it out. See where it takes you. Another thing that I have done is when something that I do not like in a book I have written out what I would have done. That has helped me get peace with the story or helped me get over the story. Do not feel bad about rewriting some other authors work, just do not steal it, of course. Be inspired by the works around you. Shakespeare borrowed, changed, and outright stole every one of his plays. They all are from older famous works so if another author has just the prefect sub plotline you need to jump start your own work, do not be afraid to use some or parts of it. Just do not steal from them. When in doubt contact the author and ask. Remember do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Until next week; write and be blessed.

Image from Google Images.

Everyone has something important

Well I was and still am not sure what I want to write about this week but I do something fun/interesting to tell you. If you Google writing blog ideas I am the fifth thing that will pop up at least for me and that I think is really cool but I do not think that it will work for others (sad face). I do not know if that is because of some setting that I have on my Google account or if I am really the fifth thing out there. I really hope that I am the fifth thing because that would be so cool. If that is really the case I want to write about why I think that is. I think that maybe everyone thinks that they know how to write. I am not talking about grammar or anything like that but they just do not need to talk about how to write. Or maybe others believe that they do not know enough about the art of writing to have an opinion or something like that.

That is not true. If you have written anything from a letter (or e-mail as the world is now) to a paper for class you have some knowledge about how to write and be successful. Now someone like John Scalzi who has a great blog about writing and more, I would trust more than someone with no writing credits under their belt. But that does not mean they do not have something of value to share. There is something that we all learn when we do the writing process that another may not know or may need help learning. So do not ever feel that just because you have not published half a dozen books does not mean that you do not have some wisdom to share about the process or just about the discipline needed to finish a piece.

Short post today but I think that it is something important that we as writers need to remember. That is that everyone has a different view of the process, a different understanding of it , and they have something important to give others about it. Until next week be blessed dear readers.

New writing schedule

So this week I have decided to try and use my free time for writing time. So far I have not had good results. Maybe it is this week because I have had personal life; like my cat going to the vet and my sister maybe here about a month early and my mother needs help getting ready for her and the children. But this week’s lack of word count is disheartening. In addition to my normal work for grad school and I have to do well to make certain powerful people happy. So I have written some on a short story that I plotted out with character bios and everything about two years ago. I was writing it when I realized that I needed to have a prologue to explain some background information that is important to the story but never talked about in the story itself. So I went back to the beginning and started writing a prologue. That is all I have done on it. It is less than 500 words and I want the story to be about 5000.

Well I am going to continue to try with this new writing schedule. Maybe this is just a bad week or maybe it just feels bad because I am trying something new. About the writing itself I have high hopes for my piece. I am writing a science fiction story and when I get it done (God I hope) then I get to give it to my beta readers. I am very lucky in my readers because I have someone who knows me so well that when I make a mistake, like switching words I do that a lot, he knows exactly what I am trying to saying. By switching words I mean this- “She walked towards the car. The rain was just a plain rain but the car made it shiny.” My brain moves faster than my hands and it shows. Then I have a grammar friend who loves me but hates my grammar. It is cool he is very helpful and nice about it. Then I have a creative writing friend and a last someone who could be a professional reader.

How I handle all this outside help? Well I do it in stages. I do not send my work out to a new beta until I have read and worked with all notes from the previous beta. I talk with my betas about their notes and why they felt that way about it. I listen to them when they are talking about their notes and I do not interrupt them while they are doing it. My betas are giving me something wonderful and I do my best to respect them when they are helping me become a better writer. Well hopefully I will have a better word count for you next week. Thanks for reading and see you next time.